I think of myself as a personal growth facilitator, dedicated to generating conversations that bring our internal narratives to the surface. When we interact with the world, we do so both on the surface and from inside ourselves.

Mar 20 Top 5 Ways to Get Your Life Unstuck!

How you get unstuck depends on the way in which you got stuck in the first place. It may be that you are wedged in a big pile of snow and need to get a shovel to remove the snow that’s stopping you. Or your wheels may be spinning and you may need to find some kind of grit to put under the tires to give you traction. You may need to rock between drive and reverse while other people push. Or you may be so stuck that you need to bring in a professional (a tow truck).

It’s the same for getting unstuck when you feel stuck in some area of your life. How you get unstuck depends on how and why you’re stuck in the first place.

So, here are the top 5 ways to get unstuck:

1. Stop believing in top 5 lists. Life isn’t that straight forward, and looking for the answer to your complex human experience by reducing it to “10 foods to never eat” or “5 exercises to do every day” is actually a way of avoiding doing the work of getting unstuck. The truth is that if there was a simple solution, a step by step foolproof strategy for getting unstuck, people wouldn’t get stuck.

2. Do the opposite – Whatever you have been trying up until now is clearly not working if you are still stuck. So try doing the opposite. If you’ve been pushing through on a project and ignoring your exhaustion, try giving yourself permission to rest. If you’ve been sitting inert, hoping inspiration will come and ignoring the fact that it isn’t arriving, just do SOMETHING! Get the idea? It’s like rocking back and forth when your wheels are spinning. It sometimes takes opposite momentum to get unstuck.

3. Talk to your people – Telling someone else where you are stuck allows you to examine the problem from a different perspective, literally. They may be able to see something you can’t. If you feel resistance because you feel like you will then have to do whatever they recommend, know that you don’t have to take their suggestions or advice. But you do need to actually consider what they offer if you want to benefit from this different perspective.

4. Acknowledge how hard it is to get unstuck – Being stuck implies a lack of solution. If you had the solution, you would get unstuck. (If you believe you have the solution but aren’t willing to put it into action, you need to rethink where you are stuck....) Lack of solution implies something you don’t know or don’t understand. Going from not understanding to understanding something (learning) is a lot of work. It uses our finite resources, including brain power and time, and it’s scary because we don’t know if we will ever learn it, right up until we do. So give yourself BIG credit for trying and make sure you allocate enough resources to succeed.

5. Call a professional – Sometimes the fastest way through is to pay someone who knows how to do what you don’t yet know how to do. It can be tricky to find the right person or program so be willing to keep trying until you find the right fit. You are entitled to do that!